The Name Says It All: Burma's Insein Prison The Name Says It All: Burma's Insein Prison Tweet Myanmar's Insein Prison, where Auung San Suu Kyi and hundreds of others are held (c) Digital Globe 2008. Image taken from Google Earth Myanmar’s opposition leader and Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been brought to the country’s infamous Insein (pronounced “insane”) prison, to face trial on May 18. The prison has been described as the “darkest hell-hole in Burma” and houses many of the country’s more than 2,100 political prisoners. Just recently, after years of campaigning by Amnesty International, Mah Khin Khin Leh has been released from there. Aung San Suu Kyi’s transfer to Insein prison has sparked international outcry, led by Amnesty International activists . The UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, made the following statement yesterday : “I call on the government of Myanmar [Burma] to release Aung San Suu Kyi and her aides unconditionally”. The BBC has a good report summarizing the events of the last few days.

Post Views: 179 Ma Khin Khin Leh is Free! About Christoph Koettl Christoph Koettl is the Emergency Response Manager at Amnesty International USA and works on urgent human rights situations such as armed conflicts. In his work he focuses on exploring the intersection of technology and human rights, specializing in utilizing satellite imagery or citizen video for human rights research and advocacy. He previously worked and studied in Austria, the Netherlands and Italy and holds an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His expertise is in International Humanitarian Law, conflict analysis, crisis mapping, video validation and social media forensics and he is a regular speaker on technology and human rights. He has testified on war crimes in Sri Lanka before the United States Congress and his work is covered regularly by numerous national and international media, including Associated Press, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera and Reuters. AIUSA welcomes a lively and courteous discussion that follow our Community Guidelines . Comments are not pre-screened before they post but AIUSA reserves the right to remove any comments violating our guidelines. 43 thoughts on “The Name Says It All: Burma's Insein Prison” I never thought a building could be so aptly named.

therese greenheck on Burma's generals expose their fear by brutalizing those they are most afraid of. therese greenheck on Burma’s generals expose their fear by brutalizing those they are most afraid of. G. R. Pemberton on Free those who speak truth to power. Cowards stifle speech. MKD on May 20, 2009 at 5:49 AM said: The detention of Aung San Suu Kyi is a disgrace and the very epitome of corruption and hostility. Her relentless peaceful defiance is a testament to her enlightened character and I hope the world stands up to this ruthless, violent and opressive government until democracy reigns and she, and the thousands of other political prisoners are free. Cynthia Pierson on May 20, 2009 at 8:59 AM said: I am responding to the BBC report and I stand for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. Stop this oppression. G. R. Pemberton on May 20, 2009 at 9:49 AM said: The detention of Aung San Suu Kyi is a disgrace and the very epitome of corruption and hostility.

Her relentless peaceful defiance is a testament to her enlightened character and I hope the world stands up to this ruthless, violent and opressive government until democracy reigns and she, and the thousands of other political prisoners are free. Cynthia Pierson on May 20, 2009 at 12:59 PM said: I am responding to the BBC report and I stand for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. Stop this oppression. SaNayMa on May 20, 2009 at 3:37 PM said: Lets get together to free Aung San Su Kyi and all political prisoners. It is so sad for me seeing my people suffer because of the stupid power greedy People. SaNayMa on May 20, 2009 at 7:37 PM said: Lets get together to free Aung San Su Kyi and all political prisoners. It is so sad for me seeing my people suffer because of the stupid power greedy People.

ABOUT AUNG SAN SUU KYI, MEDITATOR AND TEACHER ©2009 by Alice Walker To paraphrase our beloved James Baldwin: the world is held together, really the world is held together by the love and compassion and clarity of thought of a very few individuals. Though this idea may be frightening, the world being in such distress, it is also comforting. At least there are a few people who can be counted on to lead us in a proper direction for survival as humans, and for thriving as a species. Aung San Suu Kyi is at the top of the list. That is really the reason she is jailed and on her way to being imprisoned in Insein Prison, in Burma, where conditions are notoriously horrific and from which inmates often emerge, if indeed they do emerge alive, broken and in need of things like wheelchairs. What can we do? My parents grew up in a society very much like Burma’s, in the Southern United States of North America. Repression of every kind, for people of color, was the order of the day. They taught their children to hold an inner dignity as the highest possible sign of human development, and they taught us to believe in education.

These are things that, when I traveled in Burma recently, I recognized immediately in the Burmese people. These people, like the Palestinians who suffer a fate remarkably similar to theirs under Israeli occupation, are holding a sacred thread, not unlike the thread of Ariadne, which we can use, if we lend our whole selves to the effort, to lead us out of the labyrinth of confusion, and away from the people eating Minotaur that has turned out to be human greed. It is as astonishing as it is fascinating to see so clearly that it is our own greed that is eating us. In Burma it is the greed of a faceless mob of generals who dream up ways every day to further ransack and impoverish the Burmese population and the land of Burma itself. Selling its precious woods, gems and minerals, and routinely enslaving its people to work on “public projects” designed to enrich those in power. I am sure the Junta viewed a recent film made in Burma by unbelievably courageous journalists, journalists with cameras, called Burma VJ: Report from a Closed Country that thoroughly exposes their implacable brutality. In graphic detail it shows the relentless attempt by the Generals to dominate and destroy the Burmese people.

It depicts the soul stirring solidarity of common people with the monks and nuns who rise in defense of them, and the slaughter of monks whose very chants, as they’re bludgeoned or shot down, remind the Burmese people of their non-negotiable belief in Non-Harming. This is one of the places I suggest we start: viewing and widely distributing and discussing this film. From the point of view that everyone on earth is Burmese. Greed knows no nationality or boundary, and if we wait for things to change in Burma of their own accord, we will have abandoned what is most threatened in all of us: our human dignity and our freedom to pursue the life we choose for ourselves; in other words, democracy. Indeed, true democracy is what Americans, from all the Americas, are working toward. Largely because of centuries of greed and theft, we are far from the goal. When I returned from Burma in February 2009, I wrote a long letter to Aung San Suu Kyi.

I understood she might never see it; the point was to send it as a postcard for the world to read, for those who knew nothing or little of her situation, of Burma’s situation, to have a quick study in preparation for the struggle to free her and to give her country back to her, and to the people who love it. As an offering to a contemporary view of a tiny part of Burma, by a North American, that I was able to grasp in less than two weeks, I offer this letter/postcard to anyone who wishes to read it. It is on my blog, a few clicks from this message. There is also an Aung San Suu Kyi webpage where one can find suggestions for actions. There is a petition that asks the United Nations to intervene. There are suggestions for places to contact and people to write. I personally feel we as a world have almost passed the following point, but I will offer it: It is time for people to descend en masse in places like Burma and Palestine and to …. Well, show up. Do I know how to get hundreds and thousands of people on this journey? No, I don’t. But somebody does; it has been done before.

People showed up en masse in Mississippi decades ago, and changed the direction of the world. Without the Mississippi struggle there would be no Obama, for starters; there would be no possibility of Americans, black and white, feeling the freedom and joy in each other’s being that is so frequently the most pleasant and astounding surprise of the recent quarter century. What makes Aung San Suu Kyi so very special – and Buddhists will yawn – is that she is a meditator. This means her mind is well trained to grasp the implications of actions, especially violent ones, too many of our world leaders seem clueless about. They talk about annihilating, obliterating, beggaring, starving, impoverishing, raping and pillaging other human beings as if this behavior has no consequences to themselves or to those they represent. This is an incredibly antique way of looking at our problems: that we can bomb them away. War is a dead end, literally. And, what is more, we simply can’t afford it. Not morally, and not financially. How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?

We see, if we care to look, that everything really is connected, and, not only connected, it is the same thing. Aung San Suu Kyi gets this, which is why she renounces violence in the face of one of the most violent regimes in the world, while at the same time not condemning those who, driven to desperate measures by their mistreatment by the regime, resort to violence in an attempt to defend themselves. I can’t think of anything more important than Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle, which she is waging so brilliantly. She has proved she is not afraid of death, and one feels imprisonment will be to her – as being jailed was for Martin Luther King – simply part of a necessary pilgrimage of the soul. I am not as concerned about her, to be honest, as I am about the rest of us. We need Aung San Suu Kyi. We need her example of integrity, courage, a raging and revolutionary loving kindness that has kept her steady in her long years under house arrest.

It is amazing to think of the discipline she has taught herself over these years: to see through the masks of even the most brutal dictators, and to discern the confused, unwell, frightened persons behind the masks. To say, even after years of house arrest: I would hope one day to be friends. I would sit down and talk with them. This is a rare being. But not too rare for this world. It was this world and the Burmese culture and life in India and England, and her own special spirit that produced her. A spirit, for all its rareness, not of “heaven” but of Earth. Reading her thoughts one finds nothing vaporous or otherworldly; she is among the most practical of people. Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma are world treasures; if we lose them, we lose knowledge of a human capacity for wisdom, and an instinct for understanding our human responsibility for the gift of life, that will mean we may never know what, on this endlessly giving and radiant planet, a planet that bows to us every single day, we are doing here.

It is up to the citizens of the world to free Aung San Suu Kyi and all Burma’s political prisoners, as well as the country of Burma itself. Our governments, bogged down with the accumulated mistakes of the past, and burdened by their own entanglement in greed, are not likely to be sufficient help, even when they are willing. We must remember as we look about the planet at people like ourselves who are oppressed and discouraged, that we are the majority. Sometimes the feeling of being very small in so large a scheme of suffering hinders us. But, take heart. Before the ice at the polar caps completely melts and we are all submerged, along with our dreams, we can do a lot. Especially if we can commit to do even a little. Once someone pointed out to Sojourner Truth how insignificant she was; a black person, a woman, recently enslaved. To paraphrase her acerbic rejoinder: If I’m only a flea on the back of the stubbornest mule on earth, by God I intend to keep him scratching. That we can do.

Somebody who reads this, perhaps in China, Cambodia, Thailand or Burma, will know how to be a flea on the backs of the Generals in Rangoon. Somebody in Washington, D.C. may know how to do this. Each of us must find our own mule. Meanwhile, we cheer you on! With metta, and in Solidarity with Aung San Suu Kyi, and the Brave People of Burma, especially the monks and the journalists! With much respect, ABOUT AUNG SAN SUU KYI, MEDITATOR AND TEACHER ©2009 by Alice Walker To paraphrase our beloved James Baldwin: the world is held together, really the world is held together by the love and compassion and clarity of thought of a very few individuals. Though this idea may be frightening, the world being in such distress, it is also comforting. At least there are a few people who can be counted on to lead us in a proper direction for survival as humans, and for thriving as a species. Aung San Suu Kyi is at the top of the list.

That is really the reason she is jailed and on her way to being imprisoned in Insein Prison, in Burma, where conditions are notoriously horrific and from which inmates often emerge, if indeed they do emerge alive, broken and in need of things like wheelchairs. What can we do? My parents grew up in a society very much like Burma’s, in the Southern United States of North America. Repression of every kind, for people of color, was the order of the day. They taught their children to hold an inner dignity as the highest possible sign of human development, and they taught us to believe in education. These are things that, when I traveled in Burma recently, I recognized immediately in the Burmese people. These people, like the Palestinians who suffer a fate remarkably similar to theirs under Israeli occupation, are holding a sacred thread, not unlike the thread of Ariadne, which we can use, if we lend our whole selves to the effort, to lead us out of the labyrinth of confusion, and away from the people eating Minotaur that has turned out to be human greed. It is as astonishing as it is fascinating to see so clearly that it is our own greed that is eating us.

In Burma it is the greed of a faceless mob of generals who dream up ways every day to further ransack and impoverish the Burmese population and the land of Burma itself. Selling its precious woods, gems and minerals, and routinely enslaving its people to work on “public projects” designed to enrich those in power. I am sure the Junta viewed a recent film made in Burma by unbelievably courageous journalists, journalists with cameras, called Burma VJ: Report from a Closed Country that thoroughly exposes their implacable brutality. In graphic detail it shows the relentless attempt by the Generals to dominate and destroy the Burmese people. It depicts the soul stirring solidarity of common people with the monks and nuns who rise in defense of them, and the slaughter of monks whose very chants, as they’re bludgeoned or shot down, remind the Burmese people of their non-negotiable belief in Non-Harming. This is one of the places I suggest we start: viewing and widely distributing and discussing this film. From the point of view that everyone on earth is Burmese.

Greed knows no nationality or boundary, and if we wait for things to change in Burma of their own accord, we will have abandoned what is most threatened in all of us: our human dignity and our freedom to pursue the life we choose for ourselves; in other words, democracy. Indeed, true democracy is what Americans, from all the Americas, are working toward. Largely because of centuries of greed and theft, we are far from the goal. When I returned from Burma in February 2009, I wrote a long letter to Aung San Suu Kyi. I understood she might never see it; the point was to send it as a postcard for the world to read, for those who knew nothing or little of her situation, of Burma’s situation, to have a quick study in preparation for the struggle to free her and to give her country back to her, and to the people who love it. As an offering to a contemporary view of a tiny part of Burma, by a North American, that I was able to grasp in less than two weeks, I offer this letter/postcard to anyone who wishes to read it. It is on my blog, a few clicks from this message.

There is also an Aung San Suu Kyi webpage where one can find suggestions for actions. There is a petition that asks the United Nations to intervene. There are suggestions for places to contact and people to write. I personally feel we as a world have almost passed the following point, but I will offer it: It is time for people to descend en masse in places like Burma and Palestine and to …. Well, show up. Do I know how to get hundreds and thousands of people on this journey? No, I don’t. But somebody does; it has been done before. People showed up en masse in Mississippi decades ago, and changed the direction of the world. Without the Mississippi struggle there would be no Obama, for starters; there would be no possibility of Americans, black and white, feeling the freedom and joy in each other’s being that is so frequently the most pleasant and astounding surprise of the recent quarter century. What makes Aung San Suu Kyi so very special – and Buddhists will yawn – is that she is a meditator. This means her mind is well trained to grasp the implications of actions, especially violent ones, too many of our world leaders seem clueless about.

They talk about annihilating, obliterating, beggaring, starving, impoverishing, raping and pillaging other human beings as if this behavior has no consequences to themselves or to those they represent. This is an incredibly antique way of looking at our problems: that we can bomb them away. War is a dead end, literally. And, what is more, we simply can’t afford it. Not morally, and not financially. How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed? We see, if we care to look, that everything really is connected, and, not only connected, it is the same thing. Aung San Suu Kyi gets this, which is why she renounces violence in the face of one of the most violent regimes in the world, while at the same time not condemning those who, driven to desperate measures by their mistreatment by the regime, resort to violence in an attempt to defend themselves. I can’t think of anything more important than Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle, which she is waging so brilliantly.

She has proved she is not afraid of death, and one feels imprisonment will be to her – as being jailed was for Martin Luther King – simply part of a necessary pilgrimage of the soul. I am not as concerned about her, to be honest, as I am about the rest of us. We need Aung San Suu Kyi. We need her example of integrity, courage, a raging and revolutionary loving kindness that has kept her steady in her long years under house arrest. It is amazing to think of the discipline she has taught herself over these years: to see through the masks of even the most brutal dictators, and to discern the confused, unwell, frightened persons behind the masks. To say, even after years of house arrest: I would hope one day to be friends. I would sit down and talk with them. This is a rare being. But not too rare for this world. It was this world and the Burmese culture and life in India and England, and her own special spirit that produced her. A spirit, for all its rareness, not of “heaven” but of Earth. Reading her thoughts one finds nothing vaporous or otherworldly; she is among the most practical of people.

Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma are world treasures; if we lose them, we lose knowledge of a human capacity for wisdom, and an instinct for understanding our human responsibility for the gift of life, that will mean we may never know what, on this endlessly giving and radiant planet, a planet that bows to us every single day, we are doing here. It is up to the citizens of the world to free Aung San Suu Kyi and all Burma’s political prisoners, as well as the country of Burma itself. Our governments, bogged down with the accumulated mistakes of the past, and burdened by their own entanglement in greed, are not likely to be sufficient help, even when they are willing. We must remember as we look about the planet at people like ourselves who are oppressed and discouraged, that we are the majority. Sometimes the feeling of being very small in so large a scheme of suffering hinders us. But, take heart. Before the ice at the polar caps completely melts and we are all submerged, along with our dreams, we can do a lot. Especially if we can commit to do even a little.

Once someone pointed out to Sojourner Truth how insignificant she was; a black person, a woman, recently enslaved. To paraphrase her acerbic rejoinder: If I’m only a flea on the back of the stubbornest mule on earth, by God I intend to keep him scratching. That we can do. Somebody who reads this, perhaps in China, Cambodia, Thailand or Burma, will know how to be a flea on the backs of the Generals in Rangoon. Somebody in Washington, D.C. may know how to do this. Each of us must find our own mule. Meanwhile, we cheer you on! With metta, and in Solidarity with Aung San Suu Kyi, and the Brave People of Burma, especially the monks and the journalists! With much respect, ABOUT AUNG SAN SUU KYI, MEDITATOR AND TEACHER ©2009 by Alice Walker To paraphrase our beloved James Baldwin: the world is held together, really the world is held together by the love and compassion and clarity of thought of a very few individuals. Though this idea may be frightening, the world being in such distress, it is also comforting.

At least there are a few people who can be counted on to lead us in a proper direction for survival as humans, and for thriving as a species. Aung San Suu Kyi is at the top of the list. That is really the reason she is jailed and on her way to being imprisoned in Insein Prison, in Burma, where conditions are notoriously horrific and from which inmates often emerge, if indeed they do emerge alive, broken and in need of things like wheelchairs. What can we do? My parents grew up in a society very much like Burma’s, in the Southern United States of North America. Repression of every kind, for people of color, was the order of the day. They taught their children to hold an inner dignity as the highest possible sign of human development, and they taught us to believe in education. These are things that, when I traveled in Burma recently, I recognized immediately in the Burmese people.

These people, like the Palestinians who suffer a fate remarkably similar to theirs under Israeli occupation, are holding a sacred thread, not unlike the thread of Ariadne, which we can use, if we lend our whole selves to the effort, to lead us out of the labyrinth of confusion, and away from the people eating Minotaur that has turned out to be human greed. It is as astonishing as it is fascinating to see so clearly that it is our own greed that is eating us. In Burma it is the greed of a faceless mob of generals who dream up ways every day to further ransack and impoverish the Burmese population and the land of Burma itself. Selling its precious woods, gems and minerals, and routinely enslaving its people to work on “public projects” designed to enrich those in power. I am sure the Junta viewed a recent film made in Burma by unbelievably courageous journalists, journalists with cameras, called Burma VJ: Report from a Closed Country that thoroughly exposes their implacable brutality. In graphic detail it shows the relentless attempt by the Generals to dominate and destroy the Burmese people.

It depicts the soul stirring solidarity of common people with the monks and nuns who rise in defense of them, and the slaughter of monks whose very chants, as they’re bludgeoned or shot down, remind the Burmese people of their non-negotiable belief in Non-Harming. This is one of the places I suggest we start: viewing and widely distributing and discussing this film. From the point of view that everyone on earth is Burmese. Greed knows no nationality or boundary, and if we wait for things to change in Burma of their own accord, we will have abandoned what is most threatened in all of us: our human dignity and our freedom to pursue the life we choose for ourselves; in other words, democracy. Indeed, true democracy is what Americans, from all the Americas, are working toward. Largely because of centuries of greed and theft, we are far from the goal. When I returned from Burma in February 2009, I wrote a long letter to Aung San Suu Kyi.

I understood she might never see it; the point was to send it as a postcard for the world to read, for those who knew nothing or little of her situation, of Burma’s situation, to have a quick study in preparation for the struggle to free her and to give her country back to her, and to the people who love it. As an offering to a contemporary view of a tiny part of Burma, by a North American, that I was able to grasp in less than two weeks, I offer this letter/postcard to anyone who wishes to read it. It is on my blog, a few clicks from this message. There is also an Aung San Suu Kyi webpage where one can find suggestions for actions. There is a petition that asks the United Nations to intervene. There are suggestions for places to contact and people to write. I personally feel we as a world have almost passed the following point, but I will offer it: It is time for people to descend en masse in places like Burma and Palestine and to …. Well, show up. Do I know how to get hundreds and thousands of people on this journey? No, I don’t. But somebody does; it has been done before.

People showed up en masse in Mississippi decades ago, and changed the direction of the world. Without the Mississippi struggle there would be no Obama, for starters; there would be no possibility of Americans, black and white, feeling the freedom and joy in each other’s being that is so frequently the most pleasant and astounding surprise of the recent quarter century. What makes Aung San Suu Kyi so very special – and Buddhists will yawn – is that she is a meditator. This means her mind is well trained to grasp the implications of actions, especially violent ones, too many of our world leaders seem clueless about. They talk about annihilating, obliterating, beggaring, starving, impoverishing, raping and pillaging other human beings as if this behavior has no consequences to themselves or to those they represent. This is an incredibly antique way of looking at our problems: that we can bomb them away. War is a dead end, literally. And, what is more, we simply can’t afford it. Not morally, and not financially. How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?

We see, if we care to look, that everything really is connected, and, not only connected, it is the same thing. Aung San Suu Kyi gets this, which is why she renounces violence in the face of one of the most violent regimes in the world, while at the same time not condemning those who, driven to desperate measures by their mistreatment by the regime, resort to violence in an attempt to defend themselves. I can’t think of anything more important than Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle, which she is waging so brilliantly. She has proved she is not afraid of death, and one feels imprisonment will be to her – as being jailed was for Martin Luther King – simply part of a necessary pilgrimage of the soul. I am not as concerned about her, to be honest, as I am about the rest of us. We need Aung San Suu Kyi. We need her example of integrity, courage, a raging and revolutionary loving kindness that has kept her steady in her long years under house arrest.

It is amazing to think of the discipline she has taught herself over these years: to see through the masks of even the most brutal dictators, and to discern the confused, unwell, frightened persons behind the masks. To say, even after years of house arrest: I would hope one day to be friends. I would sit down and talk with them. This is a rare being. But not too rare for this world. It was this world and the Burmese culture and life in India and England, and her own special spirit that produced her. A spirit, for all its rareness, not of “heaven” but of Earth. Reading her thoughts one finds nothing vaporous or otherworldly; she is among the most practical of people. Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma are world treasures; if we lose them, we lose knowledge of a human capacity for wisdom, and an instinct for understanding our human responsibility for the gift of life, that will mean we may never know what, on this endlessly giving and radiant planet, a planet that bows to us every single day, we are doing here.

It is up to the citizens of the world to free Aung San Suu Kyi and all Burma’s political prisoners, as well as the country of Burma itself. Our governments, bogged down with the accumulated mistakes of the past, and burdened by their own entanglement in greed, are not likely to be sufficient help, even when they are willing. We must remember as we look about the planet at people like ourselves who are oppressed and discouraged, that we are the majority. Sometimes the feeling of being very small in so large a scheme of suffering hinders us. But, take heart. Before the ice at the polar caps completely melts and we are all submerged, along with our dreams, we can do a lot. Especially if we can commit to do even a little. Once someone pointed out to Sojourner Truth how insignificant she was; a black person, a woman, recently enslaved. To paraphrase her acerbic rejoinder: If I’m only a flea on the back of the stubbornest mule on earth, by God I intend to keep him scratching. That we can do.

Somebody who reads this, perhaps in China, Cambodia, Thailand or Burma, will know how to be a flea on the backs of the Generals in Rangoon. Somebody in Washington, D.C. may know how to do this. Each of us must find our own mule. Meanwhile, we cheer you on! With metta, and in Solidarity with Aung San Suu Kyi, and the Brave People of Burma, especially the monks and the journalists! With much respect, ABOUT AUNG SAN SUU KYI, MEDITATOR AND TEACHER ©2009 by Alice Walker To paraphrase our beloved James Baldwin: the world is held together, really the world is held together by the love and compassion and clarity of thought of a very few individuals. Though this idea may be frightening, the world being in such distress, it is also comforting. At least there are a few people who can be counted on to lead us in a proper direction for survival as humans, and for thriving as a species. Aung San Suu Kyi is at the top of the list.

That is really the reason she is jailed and on her way to being imprisoned in Insein Prison, in Burma, where conditions are notoriously horrific and from which inmates often emerge, if indeed they do emerge alive, broken and in need of things like wheelchairs. What can we do? My parents grew up in a society very much like Burma’s, in the Southern United States of North America. Repression of every kind, for people of color, was the order of the day. They taught their children to hold an inner dignity as the highest possible sign of human development, and they taught us to believe in education. These are things that, when I traveled in Burma recently, I recognized immediately in the Burmese people. These people, like the Palestinians who suffer a fate remarkably similar to theirs under Israeli occupation, are holding a sacred thread, not unlike the thread of Ariadne, which we can use, if we lend our whole selves to the effort, to lead us out of the labyrinth of confusion, and away from the people eating Minotaur that has turned out to be human greed. It is as astonishing as it is fascinating to see so clearly that it is our own greed that is eating us.

In Burma it is the greed of a faceless mob of generals who dream up ways every day to further ransack and impoverish the Burmese population and the land of Burma itself. Selling its precious woods, gems and minerals, and routinely enslaving its people to work on “public projects” designed to enrich those in power. I am sure the Junta viewed a recent film made in Burma by unbelievably courageous journalists, journalists with cameras, called Burma VJ: Report from a Closed Country that thoroughly exposes their implacable brutality. In graphic detail it shows the relentless attempt by the Generals to dominate and destroy the Burmese people. It depicts the soul stirring solidarity of common people with the monks and nuns who rise in defense of them, and the slaughter of monks whose very chants, as they’re bludgeoned or shot down, remind the Burmese people of their non-negotiable belief in Non-Harming. This is one of the places I suggest we start: viewing and widely distributing and discussing this film. From the point of view that everyone on earth is Burmese.

Greed knows no nationality or boundary, and if we wait for things to change in Burma of their own accord, we will have abandoned what is most threatened in all of us: our human dignity and our freedom to pursue the life we choose for ourselves; in other words, democracy. Indeed, true democracy is what Americans, from all the Americas, are working toward. Largely because of centuries of greed and theft, we are far from the goal. When I returned from Burma in February 2009, I wrote a long letter to Aung San Suu Kyi. I understood she might never see it; the point was to send it as a postcard for the world to read, for those who knew nothing or little of her situation, of Burma’s situation, to have a quick study in preparation for the struggle to free her and to give her country back to her, and to the people who love it. As an offering to a contemporary view of a tiny part of Burma, by a North American, that I was able to grasp in less than two weeks, I offer this letter/postcard to anyone who wishes to read it. It is on my blog, a few clicks from this message.

There is also an Aung San Suu Kyi webpage where one can find suggestions for actions. There is a petition that asks the United Nations to intervene. There are suggestions for places to contact and people to write. I personally feel we as a world have almost passed the following point, but I will offer it: It is time for people to descend en masse in places like Burma and Palestine and to …. Well, show up. Do I know how to get hundreds and thousands of people on this journey? No, I don’t. But somebody does; it has been done before. People showed up en masse in Mississippi decades ago, and changed the direction of the world. Without the Mississippi struggle there would be no Obama, for starters; there would be no possibility of Americans, black and white, feeling the freedom and joy in each other’s being that is so frequently the most pleasant and astounding surprise of the recent quarter century. What makes Aung San Suu Kyi so very special – and Buddhists will yawn – is that she is a meditator. This means her mind is well trained to grasp the implications of actions, especially violent ones, too many of our world leaders seem clueless about.

They talk about annihilating, obliterating, beggaring, starving, impoverishing, raping and pillaging other human beings as if this behavior has no consequences to themselves or to those they represent. This is an incredibly antique way of looking at our problems: that we can bomb them away. War is a dead end, literally. And, what is more, we simply can’t afford it. Not morally, and not financially. How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed? We see, if we care to look, that everything really is connected, and, not only connected, it is the same thing. Aung San Suu Kyi gets this, which is why she renounces violence in the face of one of the most violent regimes in the world, while at the same time not condemning those who, driven to desperate measures by their mistreatment by the regime, resort to violence in an attempt to defend themselves. I can’t think of anything more important than Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle, which she is waging so brilliantly.

She has proved she is not afraid of death, and one feels imprisonment will be to her – as being jailed was for Martin Luther King – simply part of a necessary pilgrimage of the soul. I am not as concerned about her, to be honest, as I am about the rest of us. We need Aung San Suu Kyi. We need her example of integrity, courage, a raging and revolutionary loving kindness that has kept her steady in her long years under house arrest. It is amazing to think of the discipline she has taught herself over these years: to see through the masks of even the most brutal dictators, and to discern the confused, unwell, frightened persons behind the masks. To say, even after years of house arrest: I would hope one day to be friends. I would sit down and talk with them. This is a rare being. But not too rare for this world. It was this world and the Burmese culture and life in India and England, and her own special spirit that produced her. A spirit, for all its rareness, not of “heaven” but of Earth. Reading her thoughts one finds nothing vaporous or otherworldly; she is among the most practical of people.

Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma are world treasures; if we lose them, we lose knowledge of a human capacity for wisdom, and an instinct for understanding our human responsibility for the gift of life, that will mean we may never know what, on this endlessly giving and radiant planet, a planet that bows to us every single day, we are doing here. It is up to the citizens of the world to free Aung San Suu Kyi and all Burma’s political prisoners, as well as the country of Burma itself. Our governments, bogged down with the accumulated mistakes of the past, and burdened by their own entanglement in greed, are not likely to be sufficient help, even when they are willing. We must remember as we look about the planet at people like ourselves who are oppressed and discouraged, that we are the majority. Sometimes the feeling of being very small in so large a scheme of suffering hinders us. But, take heart. Before the ice at the polar caps completely melts and we are all submerged, along with our dreams, we can do a lot. Especially if we can commit to do even a little.

Once someone pointed out to Sojourner Truth how insignificant she was; a black person, a woman, recently enslaved. To paraphrase her acerbic rejoinder: If I’m only a flea on the back of the stubbornest mule on earth, by God I intend to keep him scratching. That we can do. Somebody who reads this, perhaps in China, Cambodia, Thailand or Burma, will know how to be a flea on the backs of the Generals in Rangoon. Somebody in Washington, D.C. may know how to do this. Each of us must find our own mule. Meanwhile, we cheer you on! With metta, and in Solidarity with Aung San Suu Kyi, and the Brave People of Burma, especially the monks and the journalists! With much respect, May 25, 2009 at 5:04 PM said: How can one ignore this gut retching truth of Alice Walker's story of Burma, this greed on our planet grows like cancer, it appears in every nook and crany. Thinking of becoming involved? No, we must make it our business each and every day.

Dorothy Radjenovich on May 25, 2009 at 9:04 PM said: How can one ignore this gut retching truth of Alice Walker’s story of Burma, this greed on our planet grows like cancer, it appears in every nook and crany. Thinking of becoming involved? No, we must make it our business each and every day. said: February 14, 2010 My prayer is that Mah Khin Khin Leh will remain free able to speak out for future Justice inside Burma. I also abhor the mentality of a police state. This nation has many blind spots not unlike Burma. To be detained and placed in prison for virtually nothing is obscene. Quakers in North Amerika are savagely wicked once you see things on the inside. Jews in this country often murder blacks and expect to get away with it. Natalia was mistreated, abused, and then subjected to being cursed. Honest employment should never be a reduced to servitude and slavery. Seems to me Stein was a very, very sick type of employer. Lo these Jews been wicked. May god save the Palestinians from the Wickedness of Zionism.

You just don't know the inside of these big cities. A luta continua, said: February 14, 2010 My prayer is that Mah Khin Khin Leh will remain free able to speak out for future Justice inside Burma. I also abhor the mentality of a police state. This nation has many blind spots not unlike Burma. To be detained and placed in prison for virtually nothing is obscene. Quakers in North Amerika are savagely wicked once you see things on the inside. Jews in this country often murder blacks and expect to get away with it. Natalia was mistreated, abused, and then subjected to being cursed. Honest employment should never be a reduced to servitude and slavery. Seems to me Stein was a very, very sick type of employer. Lo these Jews been wicked. May god save the Palestinians from the Wickedness of Zionism. You just don’t know the inside of these big cities.

A luta continua, Arrested Myanmar activists moved to notorious jail | Reuters Sun Aug 26, 2007 | 3:41 AM EDT Arrested Myanmar activists moved to notorious jail By Aung Hla Tun | YANGON YANGON Leading Myanmar activists arrested in a crackdown by ruling generals on a rare series of protests are in the infamous Insein prison, suggesting they may indeed be tried and face 20 years in jail, a relative said on Sunday. "When they were last arrested on September 27, the regime made the same allegations against them, but they were kept at a high security police compound till they were released in January," the relative said. "We are wondering if the regime will really charge them this time because they were moved to Insein Central Prison" on the outskirts of Yangon, where many political prisoners have been held in what they later described as harsh conditions. The relative said the 13 activists, arrested in midnight raids last week, were moved swiftly to Insein as official newspapers accused them of "harming the stability of the state" after they led a protest against huge fuel price rises.

The newspapers, in unusually quick reporting of dissident arrests, said they would be charged under an internal security law that carries jail terms of up to 20 years. But there were still doubts whether the 13 -- influential figures behind a 1988 student uprising that the military suppressed ruthlessly at a cost of up to 3,000 lives and who have already spent many years in jail -- would be tried. "Moving there does not always mean that the accused will be charged," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) and a lawyer. The 13 include Min Ko Naing, a Burmese nom de guerre meaning "Conqueror of Kings", the most influential opposition activist after detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and who has already spent 15 years behind bars. "SLAPPED, PUNCHED" On Saturday, another prominent dissident, Htin Kyaw, already detained three times this year for demonstrating against falling living standards in the former Burma, was arrested in Yangon after a manhunt.

Police and pro-junta gangs from the feared Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) stopped cars and checked bus, railway and ferry terminals across the former capital in one of the harshest crackdowns in years. They checked identity papers against photographs of Htin Kyaw and Htay Kywe, a still influential leader of the 1988 student-led uprising who remains at large. Htin Kyaw shouted anti-junta slogans with another man, identified as Zaw Nyunt, as they were dragged away by men in civilian clothes, witnesses said. "They must be the plainclothes police and the UDSA thugs. I saw some of them slapping and punching Htin Kyaw when he kept shouting slogans," one said. The Burmese-language services of the BBC, Radio Free Asia and Voice of America had carried an interview with Htin Kyaw on Friday in which he said he was organizing a big demonstration. There was no immediate word on whether he, too, had been moved to Insein. Most of the protests against fuel price rises earlier this month have been in Yangon, but two have been reported elsewhere in a country ruled by the military since 1962.

On Thursday, there was one in Yenangyaung, 360 miles (580 km) north of Yangon and NLD spokesman Nyan Win said about 200 people marched in Mogok, about 550 miles away on Saturday. "So far as we've heard, there were no arrests," he said. Popular sympathy appears to be with the detained dissidents as the country boils with discontent at the shock of fuel prices doubling and more, but another 1988-style uprising is unlikely. "The people are really suffering but they are too scared to demonstrate their feelings. I don't think the protests will grow much further," Nyan Win told Reuters. "The people still haven't got over the trauma of the 1988 uprising," said a retired university professor who asked not to be named. "The entire people are suffering from depression now.

They seem to have lost confidence in everyone, everything and themselves." ADVERTISEMENT Aung San Suu Kyi currently moved to Insein prison | Asian Tribune Home » Aung San Suu Kyi currently moved to Insein prison Aung San Suu Kyi currently moved to Insein prison Fri, 2009-05-15 00:49  admin News Bangkok, 15 May, (Asiantribune.com): Burmese Democratic Aung San Suu Kyileader Aung San Suu Kyi, has been moved from her home, where she has spent 13 years under house arrest, to the infamous Insein Prison earlier yesterday , and put on trial for breaking the terms of her house arrest. She was charged after an American John Yettaw, reportedly swam across Inya Lake to her house, and refused to leave. In the meantime Amnesty International has demanded the UN Security Council, notably China, Japan, and ASEAN countries; urgently intervene to secure Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from Insein prison.

"The government of Myanmar must free Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at once, without condition, and not return her to house arrest" said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International’s Myanmar expert. Aung San Suu Kyi, Daw Khin Khin Win, her daughter Win Ma Ma and John William Yettaw were charged yesterday under section 22 of the State Protection Act. They appeared at a special court located in the notorious Insein prison compound to hear the charges against them. But, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) in a press statement revealed that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, her two live-in party members Daw Khin Khin Win and her daughter Win Ma Ma were not sent back to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s home. All of them are being held now in the Insein prison. Yesterday, the judge read out the charges to them in the court. The judge did not ask any questions. The judge ordered the defendants to return to court again on May 18, 2009.

The court was presided over by the Rangoon Western District Justice Thawng Nyunt, and Nyi Nyi Soe, in the presence of district legal advisor Myint Kyaing. The defendants are allowed to have lawyers. They are U Kyi Win and U Hla Myo Myint. Early yesterday morning, they were taken from the home of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi by armed escort to the Insein Prison. The American John William Yettaw faces an additional charge under immigration law, although the details are not yet known. - Asian Tribune - Insein prison: Myanmar's 'silent killing field' Insein prison: Myanmar's 'silent killing field' Sun, May 31, 2009 Agence France-Presse BANGKOK, May 31, 2009 (AFP) - Described by inmates as a "hell" where beatings are common and disease is rife, Myanmar's Insein Prison, where Aung San Suu Kyi is on trial, is the brutal symbol of the ruling junta's repression.

The Nobel laureate has spent the past three weeks incarcerated in a so-called "guest house" at the jail on the outskirts of Yangon while her trial takes place behind closed doors at the notorious compound. Her party has expressed concerns for her health after she suffered leg cramps in recent days while at the prison. The authorities say she is receiving medical care. But if Aung San Suu Kyi has been kept in relatively bearable conditions at the prison - which was built by former colonial power Britain - for hundreds of other political prisoners it is the heart of Myanmar's darkness. "It's like a hell where people really suffer. It's some kind of silent "killing field," - Bo Kyi, who spent seven years in the jail following a failed student uprising in 1988, told AFP. Several political prisoners told of how they suffered bruising weeks-long interrogations at the hands of the junta's jailers at Insein. Bo Kyi said during one round of questioning he was whipped with a rubber cord as he lay on his stomach and counted 150 lashes before he lost consciousness and awoke in a solitary cell.

He said he was then forced to assume different positions for hour-long periods while shackled in chains with a bar between his legs. The heavily secured Insein is home to many of the 2,100 political prisoners which the United Nations says are held in Myanmar's prisons, often on spurious sentences of up to 60 years. At least 139 political detainees have died in detention in the country since 1988, several of them in Insein, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners of Burma (AAPPB), co-founded by Bo Kyi. Details of conditions inside the secretive jail emerge mostly from former prisoners, although Tomas Okea Quintana, the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, visited the prison for four hours in February and met five inmates. He said after his visit that many detainees suffered from a lack of medical care during imprisonment. Former prisoner Aung Myo Naing, who spent more than eight years there, said that each cell in Insein is 8 by 11 feet (2.5 by 3.5 metres), furnished with two bamboo mats and two uncovered toilet buckets.

"Insein Prison is a deadly torture camp," the 41-year-old said, describing one period of about 45 days when he was kept in solitary confinement and forbidden to read, write or bathe. Past prisoners have described novel methods of communicating during these times, scratching messages to one another on cigarette filter papers and feeding them through holes in prison walls. Inmates are given 15 minutes outside of the cell daily to shower, but they have no soap and no spare clothes to change into. Many prisoners are starving - their rations of food consist of boiled water with a few sparse vegetables, fish paste and occasional rations of meat along with overcooked rice, while water is not purified. The conditions mean that diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis B are rife, while joint pains, eyesight problems and mental illness are commonplace. But access to a doctor is rare. "They give you aspirins and another drug for sneezing, whatever illness you've got," said Aung Myo Thein, whose elder brother was also imprisoned and now suffers severe depression. Due to dirty needles, medical treatment can itself be hazardous.

Last year media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said that poet Aung Than, a member of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, was probably infected with the HIV virus when he was forcibly injected in Insein prison hospital. Many other prominent prisoners have been denied access to healthcare and have been moved since October 2008 to jails hundreds of miles from their families. The International Committee of the Red Cross made its last visit to Insein Prison in November 2005, and two months later suspended its prison visits saying it could not fulfil its independent, impartial mandate. Myanmar frees 102 prisoners, including UK-New Zealand citizen, in amnesty | World news | The Guardian Myanmar Myanmar frees 102 prisoners, including UK-New Zealand citizen, in amnesty Dual citizen Philip Blackwood had been held in the country’s most notorious jail for nearly a year Philip Blackwood, centre, was jailed last March after posting an image of Buddha wearing headphones on Facebook.

Photograph: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP Friday 22 January 2016 03.59 EST Last modified on Friday 22 January 2016 05.06 EST Close This article is 13 months old Myanmar’s president has declared an amnesty for 102 prisoners including Philip Blackwood, a dual British-New Zealand citizen held in the country’s most notorious jail for nearly a year. New Zealand’s ministry of foreign affairs and trade, which handled Blackwood’s case, confirmed to the Guardian that he was on the Myanmar presidential amnesty list, which will allow him to be released from detention. It said the embassy was “liaising with the relevant authorities over the amnesty release arrangements and will advise the family when these arrangements are determined”. Blackwood’s mother, Angela, said on Friday the family was delighted he was included in the amnesty. “We’re a little shellshocked,” she told the Guardian, speaking from New Zealand by phone.

“We hope he’ll be released either today or tomorrow or at least in the next week.” Malnourished British prisoner suffering 'awful' conditions in Myanmar jail Read more The mass amnesty comes as Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy prepares to sit as a majority in parliament on 1 February after it won the general election in November. The outgoing administration of President Thein Sein , who ran a military-backed civilian government since taking over from the junta in 2011, has pushed through a series of political and economic reforms, culminating in the election that saw it voted out. Blackwood, 33, and two Burmese colleagues were accused of insulting religion and sentenced to two and a half years in jail in March after he posted a psychedelic image of Buddha wearing headphones on the Facebook page of the bar he managed in Yangon. It is not clear if the two colleagues will also be freed in the amnesty, under which the 102 prisoners, a number of whom were jailed for political reasons, will gradually be released.

Blackwood’s father said last year that he was being held in the infamous Insein Prison in a tiny cell with no window, an open sewer for a toilet and had lost 50lbs (20kg) since he was arrested. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, was detained there in 2003. A director at the president’s office, Zaw Htay, said in a statement posted on Facebook that 102 prisoners would be freed. He added that 77 people on death row would be given life in prison. The Rebel of Rangoon by Delphine Schrank review – a tale of defiance and deliverance in Burma Read more A Burmese political prisoner watchdog, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), said many of the other prisoners were arrested for staging protests. In December, it said that there were 128 political prisoners in jail. It was not immediately clear exactly how many of the 102 given amnesty on Friday were political prisoners and AAPP figures show that 403 activists are still awaiting trial for political actions. A prison official told Reuters that 18 political prisoners had already been released from Insein Prison.

The US has slowly lifted sanctions on Myanmar as it emerges from half a century of direct military rule in which hundreds of journalists, activists and politicians languished in jail for criticism of the government. Thein Sein, despite being a former military commander, is credited with leading the gradual handover of power to civilian authorities and has pardoned nearly 7,000 prisoners. However, the Myanmar armed forces, or Tatmadaw , will retain significant power. Under the army-drafted constitution, the military reserves a quarter of seats in parliament and the three most powerful government ministries: home, defence and border affairs. Reuters contributed to this report · September 16, 2016 · In Toraja, Indonesia, the sacrifice of buffalos is one of the centrepiece rituals of the region's famously lavish funeral ceremonies. Here, one such buffalo is being carved up, with the meat to be distributed amongst the family of the deceased. It is believed that the animals will accompany the deceased on his/her journey into the afterlife. · September 11, 2016 · In Tana Toraja on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, a child intently watches a funeral ceremony taking place.

The funeral is the most lavish event in Torajan culture and marks the start of the deceased's journey into 'Puya', the land of the souls. · August 11, 2016 · Meet Baso, a legendary Bajau sea nomad who still loves going out most days and submerging himself in the nearby waters of the Banda Sea to catch fish. Being a sea nomad, Baso can hold his breath for minutes underwater with ease. He is also a crack shot with a spear gun. · January 12, 2016 · August 8th 1988 (8.8.88) is one of the most important dates in Burma's history. The student uprising on that day, and the brutal response by the military, is now considered a watershed moment in the country's road towards democracy. Former political prisoner Chit Min Lay (pictured) now works at the The 88 Generation, which has created a museum of videos, photographs and other relics from that era to raise awareness about the significance of the '88 uprisings. For those planning to visit Rangoon/Yangon, the 8888 museum must not be missed.

· January 10, 2016 · Imagine being sentenced to 31 years imprisonment, without trial, simply for peaceful protest..This was the fate of Chit Min Lay, a former Burmese political prisoner who in 1998 was sent to the infamous Insein Prison, where starvation, isolation and systematic violence against inmates was commonplace. Today, Chit Min is a key part of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, an organisation which promotes democracy and civil society within Burma. · November 25, 2015 · Meet U Tin Zaw, the happiest man in Hsipaw. U Tin is the Chairman of the National League for Democracy in Hsipaw township, northern Burma. He is elated with his party's storming win in the recent elections, and although he admits much work lies ahead for the NLD, like many people in Burma he now has high hopes for his country's future. Myanmar: Who Is Htin Kyaw, Burma's New President? Aung San Suu Kyi has installed her loyal aide Htin Kyaw as Burma's first proper civilian leader in more than half a century, but few people knew much about him + READ ARTICLE On Nov.

13, 2010, just days after Burma’s military rulers staged a flawed election that gave their proxy party a majority in parliament, Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest. She had spent the better part of two decades inside her villa on the shores of Inya Lake, in the moldering former colonial capital of Rangoon, refusing a standing offer to return to her family in England and leave the generals to continue their ironfisted rule, which was unbroken since a 1962 coup. It wasn’t yet clear how long she would remain free — Suu Kyi had been released before — or what conditions might be placed on her release, but supporters and journalists rushed to catch a glimpse of the liberated Nobel Peace Prize winner. All eyes were on Suu Kyi, as she struggled to be heard over the crowd. “We haven’t seen each other for so long, so we have many things to talk about,” she said, according to the BBC . “People must work in unison,” she added. “Only then can we reach our goal.” As she spoke, a man wearing a spotless white shirt stood at her right shoulder.

Photographs from the day show her leaning over to speak into the ear of the man, her close aide, Htin Kyaw. The photographers reaching to get a shot of Burma’s most loved woman probably wished he would get out of the way. More than five years on, he is now in the center of the frame. Htin Kyaw, 69, remained at Suu Kyi’s side as she evolved from prisoner of conscience to politician, leading her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), to a stunning electoral victory. Campaigning almost on her personal popularity alone, the NLD won almost 80% of seats up for grabs at the polls in November. By rights, she should be President, but the generals thought of that. In Burma’s 2008 constitution, they inserted a stipulation, targeted at Suu Kyi, which stated that Burmese with close family members who are foreigners cannot become head of state. (Suu Kyi was married to a Briton and thus has two British sons.) On Tuesday, the NLD wielded its majority to elect Htin Kyaw as President instead.

In a vote on Tuesday, Htin Kyaw received 360 out of 652 votes from lawmakers, who include a contingent of military representatives who automatically take a quarter of seats. He was chosen over a military nominee — the army retains significant role in politics under the constitution — who will become Vice President alongside a third candidate chosen by the NLD. On April 1, Htin Kyaw will become the country’s first proper civilian leader in 54 years. Suu Kyi has already said she will control the President, who would have “ no authority .” She will have rely on Htin Kyaw ‘s unbending loyalty, since he will legally be the head of state. It remains unknown whether Suu Kyi will hold any position at all in the new administration other than “ puppeteer in chief ,” as a leading Burmese commentator described the arrangement. Before last week, few people knew much about Htin Kyaw. He was not among the NLD’s candidates during the election campaign, and is not known ever to have delivered a political speech in public.

But many Burmese have taken to him quickly, with social-media memes declaring him “our President.” Burma historian Thant Myint-U praised the choice, calling Htin Kyaw “well respected [with] unimpeachable integrity, and a very nice man.” Burmese netizens were upset by international media reports on his nomination that referred to him first as a “driver” for Suu Kyi (although he did sometimes drive her, a party member said he was never her official chauffeur). He’s more than that, they insist, pointing to his years of service to the cause of Burmese democracy, and the fact his father was a renowned poet. This pedigree is an important factor in a country where lineage matters (Suu Kyi herself initially gained adoration as the daughter of independence hero General Aung San, but has more than surpassed dynastic expectations). A comprehensive official biography for the new President has not been made available, but reports say Htin Kyaw was a schoolmate of Suu Kyi — who is one year his senior — at Yangon’s Methodist English High School. He gained an economics degree before going on to study computer science at the University of London.

Htin Kyaw worked for the Burmese government from the mid-1970s in the Ministries of Industry and Foreign Affairs, before resigning in 1992, two years after the junta ignored an earlier NLD election victory. He has since built a reputation as a devoted confidante to NLD chairperson Suu Kyi. He holds a directorship at a charitable foundation named for Suu Kyi’s mother, and is married to a newly elected NLD lawmaker. During her years of house arrest, Htin Kyaw is said to have been a link between Suu Kyi and the outside world. In 2000, during a period when she was supposedly free to travel, he joined her in an attempted visit to the central Burmese city of Mandalay. According to accounts given to the BBC, Htin Kyaw was arrested after a confrontation with an army officer at a railway station, and spent four months in Yangon’s infamous Insein Prison, as Suu Kyi was returned to house arrest. “What I noticed is he doesn’t discriminate between rich and poor,” one of his former cellmates, Thein Swe, now an NLD Member of Parliament, told the BBC.

“He is not interested in people with power. He treats everyone equally and respectfully.” His personable qualities may prove useful; the role of President could have him attending international summits, and rubbing shoulders with world leaders. But Htin Kyaw — selected primarily for his loyalty — is not likely to veer from the wishes of Suu Kyi. In all important ways, she will be the country’s new leader.

Question: The infamous Insein Prison is in which Asian country?
Answer: Burma (Myanmar)